Subtle effects of the substrate in optical disk data storage systems

Much attention has been focused on the effects of the disk substrate in optical data storage. In particular, substrate birefringence has been studied extensively because it causes significant problems in magneto-optic systems. We investigate certain subtle effects of the substrate, such as feedback into the laser diode, in compact disk and phase-change systems. Our analysis of the compact disk system led us to discover a new technique for the rapid measurement of the substrate birefringence. We also address the question of how focusing the laser beam through the substrate will affect the depth of focus.     

Optimization of groove depth for cross-talk cancellation in the scheme of land-groove recording in magneto-optic disk systems

In the scheme of land-groove recording in magneto-optic disk data-storage systems, it has been shown that an optimum groove depth exists at which the cross talk from adjacent tracks diminishes. Crosstalk cancellation, however, is very sensitive to various parameters of the system, and, in particular, the presence of substrate birefringence can have devastating effects on system performance. We analyze the origin of the observed effects by using scalar diffraction theory, and we show the reasons behind cross-talk cancellation. We also explain the relation between substrate birefringence and cross talk in simple analytical terms. Extensive computer simulations have been performed to verify and extend the theoretical results of this paper; the results of some of these simulations are also presented.     

Study of process parameters on optical qualities for injection-molded plastic lenses

Numerical simulations for mold-flow analysis and experimental measurements of injection-molded plastic lenses have been conducted for investigation of optical qualities, residual birefringence, and form accuracy resulting from various pertinent process conditions. First, residual birefringence distributions on the lens have been predicted and verified experimentally. Furthermore, full-scale factorial design of experiments was conducted to comprehend the influences of qualities, such as shear stresses, form accuracy, and volumetric deviation, on the measured primary or Seidel aberrations. In conclusion, residual birefringence induced by stresses represented by photoelasticity measurements agrees well with the numerical predictions and the experimental results indicate that the residual birefringence is mainly generated during the mold-filling stage. In addition, spherical aberration of the injection-molded plastic lenses is more sensitive to the pertinent qualities as compared to coma and astigmatism.     

Effect of tilted ellipsoid of birefringence on readout signal in magneto-optical disk data storage

In the 2× format for second-generation magneto-optical (MO) disks, there are recording tracks next to preformat pits. It has been observed that the MO signals from the tracks adjacent to the preformat pits can be affected. We present numerical modeling results on the effect of a tilted ellipsoid of substrate birefringence on the MO readout signal. Theoretical calculations show that the observed effects can be explained if a certain tilt of the ellipsoid of birefringence exists around the preformat pits.     

Negative birefraction of acoustic waves in a sonic crystal

Optical birefringence and dichroism are classical and important effects originating from two independent polarizations of optical waves in anisotropic crystals. Furthermore, the distinct dispersion relations of transverse electric and transverse magnetic polarized electromagnetic waves in photonic crystals can lead to birefringence more easily. However, it is impossible for acoustic waves in the fluid to show such a birefringence because only the longitudinal mode exists. The emergence of an artificial sonic crystal (SC) has significantly broadened the range of acoustic materials in nature that can give rise to acoustic bandgaps and be used to control the propagation of acoustic waves. Recently, negative refraction has attracted a lot of attention and has been demonstrated in both left-handed materials and photonic crystals. Similar to left-handed materials and photonic crystals, negative refractions have also been found in SCs. Here we report, for the first time, the acoustic negative-birefraction phenomenon in a two-dimensional SC, even with the same frequency and the same 'polarization' state. By means of this feature, double focusing images of a point source have been realized. This birefraction concept may be extended to other periodic systems corresponding to other forms of waves, showing great impacts on both fundamental physics and device applications.     

Temperature dependence of the birefringence of optical-disk substrates

Injection-molded polycarbonate substrates are used predominantly in read-only, write-once, phase-change and magneto-optic disks for data storage. The in-plane and vertical birefringences of these substrates adversely affect the performance of optical data-storage systems. The disks are typically expected to operate in the ambient temperature range of 5-50 °C. We have investigated the behavior of the in-plane and vertical birefringences of a polycarbonate disk substrate in this temperature range using a custom-built ellipsometer. This study reveals that the in-plane birefringence changes dramatically within the investigated range of temperatures, whereas the vertical birefringence remains essentially constant. We suspect that the change in birefringence is due primarily to thermally induced stress in the substrate.     

Birefringence control for ion-exchanged channel glass waveguides

We show that at 1.55-mum wavelength the waveguide birefringence of ion-exchanged channel waveguides in glass can be broadly tuned by a potassium and silver double-ion exchange. Two different potassium and silver double-ion-exchange processes are used to make surface waveguides with negligible waveguide birefringence. This process is crucially important in the manufacture of devices for dense wavelength-division multiplexing systems. The dependence of the waveguide birefringence on the channel width is also reported.     

Linear astigmatism of confocal off-axis reflective imaging systems and its elimination

Linear astigmatism of a confocal off-axis reflective imaging system when the object plane is tilted and located at a finite distance from the imaging system is derived. We show that linear astigmatism can be eliminated by proper configuration of the parent mirror axes in confocal off-axis two-mirror systems. The tilt angle of the image plane is also derived. The developed theory is verified by ray-tracing analysis of an example system.     

Wide view supertwisted nematic liquid-crystal light shutter

We present a novel concept of a wide viewing angle liquid-crystal display (LCD) light shutter, taking advantage of the highly symmetric 180 degrees -twisted liquid-crystal (LC) configuration and the light propagation starting with a single mode. In a specific case of the high voltage driven LCD light shutter, the resulting very high overall symmetry allows for the efficient angular compensation of the light attenuation in the optically closed state using just a simple, specifically tuned, negative-birefringent c-plate retarder. The latter can be adapted to compensate for the positive optical birefringence of the homeotropically aligned LC molecules as well as also for a great deal of the angular dependence of the crossed polarizers. We show that the additional partial compensation of the angular dependence of the crossed polarizers can be explained by a combined effect of the positive birefringence of the homeotropically aligned LC molecules, negative-birefringence c-plate retarder, and an in-plane residual positive birefringence (a-plate) of the boundary layers of the LC molecules.     

Alteration of imaging properties of an optical pickup's objective lens by a nonrotationally symmetric coating

One can control the aberrations of an optical readout system by varying the width of a strip of antireflection coatings deposited upon plastic objective lenses. It is found that one can control the magnitude of the third-order astigmatism of the system by changing the coating width. This process has the advantage that it does not significantly cause other kinds of aberration such as coma and spherical aberrations to deteriorate. When these nonrotational symmetrically (NRS) coated lenses are used for off-axis operations such as tracking movements in optical drives, the change in the magnitude of the astigmatism (DAS) that is generated can be made smaller than those of symmetrically coated or noncoated lenses. As much as a 73% decrease in DAS was observed experimentally with a NRS-coated lens. Including the birefringence of the plastic material in the analysis yields a low and constant level of astigmatism generated by shifting of the objective lens.     

Innovative Three-Axial Actuator for High-Density Optical Drive

As the density in optical data storage systems increases, a drive capable of tilt control thus becomes necessary in order to improve the tilt margin as the coma aberration is accordingly increased. In this paper, we propose an innovative three-axial actuator based on a traditional four-wire scheme with an additional pair of tilting magnets. The proposed coil-driven servo can independently compensate plusmn1 tilt degree associated with a torque variation of less than 5%. The driving forces of the focusing and tracking are kept constant while the tilt servo is activated.     

Evaluation and Compensation of Quantization Effect on Servo Performance for Hard Disk Drives

We investigated the quantization effect on the servo performance of a 1.8-in hard disk drive by changing the bits of the proposed quantizer model. We measured and analyzed the frequency response of the quantizer with different bits. The corresponding error rejection functions show that the poor rejection ability of the servo loop to low-frequency disturbances is caused by the quantizer in addition to the actuator pivot friction behavior. We propose a simple and low-cost scaling scheme to compensate the effect of the quantizer. With the compensation, the effect on the rejection ability is mostly due to the friction. Therefore, the effects from quantization and friction on the error rejection function can be differentiated, and the quantization and friction induced problems can be dealt with separately in the servo loop. In addition, through the proposed quantization model and measurement methodology, suitable bit resolution for the quantizer with and without the compensation can be identified.     

Ultra-flattened negative dispersion for residual dispersion compensation using soft glass equiangular spiral photonic crystal fiber

Abstract

We present a numerical investigation of an equiangular spiral photonic crystal fibre (ES-PCF) in soft glass for negative flattened dispersion and ultra-high birefringence. An accurate numerical approach based on finite element method is used for the simulation of the proposed structure. It is demonstrated that it is possible to obtain average negative dispersion of –526.99 ps/nm/km over 1.05–1.70 μm wavelength range with dispersion variation of 3.7 ps/nm/km. The proposed ES-PCF also offers high birefringence of 0.0226 at the excitation wavelength of 1.55 μm. The results here show that the idea of using the proposed fibre can be potential means of effectively directing for residual dispersion compensation, fibre sensor design, long distance data transmission system and so forth.     

Analytical modeling of residual stresses in multilayered superconductor systems

Residual stresses-induced damages in multilayered films grown on technical substrates present a reliability issue for the fabrication and applications of multilayered superconductor systems. Using closed-form solutions for residual stresses in multilayered systems, specific results were calculated for residual stresses induced by the lattice and the thermal mismatches in the system of YBCO/CeO₂/YSZ/Y₂O₃ films on a Ni-5 W substrate. It was concluded that lattice mismatch-induced residual stresses must be relaxed by forming interfacial defects. Studies of residual thermal stresses showed the following. When the thickness of a film is negligible compared to the substrate, the changes of its properties modify the residual stresses in this film layer but have negligible effects on the residual stresses in other layers in the system. On the other hand, when the thickness of certain film layer is not negligible compared to the substrate, residual stresses in each layer can be controlled by adjusting the properties and thickness of this film layer. Finally, the effects of buffer layers on thermal stresses in YBa₂Cu₃O_7–x (YBCO) were addressed by using YBCO/LaMnO₃/homo-epi MgO/IBAD MgO/Y₂O₃/Al₂O₃ films on Hastelloy substrate as an example.     

Comparison of exact pupil astigmatism conditions with Seidel approximations

The aberrations of axisymmetric imaging systems can be calculated to third order by use of the Seidel formula. The Coddington equations give aberrations that have quadratic dependence on the pupil, for all field points. The pupil astigmatism conditions were recently developed to predict and control aberrations that have quadratic field dependence and arbitrary pupil dependence. We investigate the relationship between the exact pupil astigmatism conditions and the classical Seidel treatment of pupil aberration.     

熔体温度对注射成型热塑性聚氨酯制件残余应力及外形精度的影响EI北大核心CSCD

采用光学双折射法研究注射成型过程中熔体温度对透明热塑性聚氨酯(TPU)弹性体平板制件残余应力的影响规律和作用机理。结果表明,TPU制件在近浇口区域的残余应力大于远浇口区域,整体残余应力随熔体温度上升而下降。通过对平行于熔体流动方向和垂直于熔体流动方向上的制件截面进行双折射测量发现,注射成型TPU制件具有明显的皮-芯结构和零应力层,且随熔体温度升高芯层厚度显著增加。残余应力分析结果表明在制件的芯层以流动残余应力为主,而皮层区域是流动残余应力和热残余应力叠加的结果。此外,制件的翘曲变形与残余应力的分布直接相关,TPU制件尺寸的改变主要是由于流动残余应力释放引起的。     

Coating-induced wave-front aberrations: on-axis astigmatism and chromatic aberration in all-reflecting systems

The coatings used on telescope mirrors and other optical interfaces can have a marked effect on an optical system's image quality. We describe the wave-front aberrations, particularly the defocus and on-axis astigmatism, that are induced by the s- and p-phase shifts of coatings. These coating-induced wave-front aberrations are very small, particularly near the design wavelengths of the coatings, but they can under certain circumstances overshadow the geometric wave-front aberrations of the system. The wave-front aberrations that are induced by reflection-enhanced coatings on an à/1.5 Cassegrain telescope are numerically evaluated as an example. A theory of coating-induced on-axis astigmatism and chromatic aberration is presented, and a simple algorithm that uses polarization ray tracing to calculate coating-induced defocus and astigmatism coefficients in radially symmetric systems is provided.     

Measuring distribution of the ellipsoid of birefringence through the thickness of optical disk substrates

We have measured the birefringence of polycarbonate optical disk substrates, using ellipsometry. For a more comprehensive characterization, the probe beam was incident upon substrates in a wide range of polar angles and from different azimuths relative to track direction (?). Our measurements show that the ellipsoid of birefringence is tilted in the plane of radial (r) and normal (z) directions. The tilt angle varies through thickness, with a maximum value of approximately 10°. For beams passing through the substrate in the ?-z plane and at large incident angles, this tilt causes significant conversion (up to 100%) between p- and s-polarized components. Distributions of other parameters, such as the values of in-plane and vertical birefringence, are obtained simultaneously in the measurements.     

光学元件残余应力无损检测技术概述

残余应力是光学元件的一个重要性能参数,对光学元件的制造和使用意义重大。光学元件残余应力的无损检测方法可粗略概括为两大类：一类是基于应变的测量方法,包括X射线衍射法、Stoney曲率法和显微拉曼光谱法,这些方法基于晶体和弹性力学分析方法,发展成熟、应用广泛;另一类是基于应力双折射效应的测量方法,包括数字光弹法、光弹调制器法和偏振光腔衰荡法,都是对残余应力导致的双折射相位差的测量,具有更直接的光学关联性、测量精度高的特点。本文归纳了光学元件残余应力测量的几种常见方法的测量原理、测量精度和应用场景,对比了它们的性能并分析了它们之间的关联性,以期建立起光学元件残余应力无损检测的宏观印象。

     

Measurement of birefringence for optical recording of disk substrates

We experimentally investigate the birefringence of bare and coated substrates for magneto-optical recording, using ellipsometry at wavelengths of 632.8 and 780 nm. The polarization rotation and ellipticity of reflected or transmitted light are measured for different incident angles and for different orientations of the incident linear polarization. The measured data are then fitted by the MULTILAYER computer program, which solves the Maxwell equations for a plane wave propagating in a multilayer structure. This approach makes it possible to determine, with high accuracy, the orientations of the principal axes of the substrate and the corresponding refractive indices. The results show that one of the principal axes is always along the substrate's normal direction, but the orientations of the in-plane principal axes can be much different from the radial and track directions. A special feature of the ellipsometers that were used is that a glass hemisphere is placed in contact with the substrate to eliminate refraction of the incident beam. This enables a maximum propagation angle of 70° (with respect to the normal) in the substrate and hence increases the measurement sensitivity. Certain anomalies have been observed, which we believe are associated with the variation of birefringence properties along the thickness direction.